Where are the Frogs of Spring? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Where are the Frogs of Spring?

 

-as John Keats never said

 

Ay, where are they? This October is summer-sour

And drowsy frogs are singing out for rain

Croakery-croaking sadly by the hour

Invoking God for a shower, but still in vain

 

The grass is withered and sere, the ground is dust

Bees gather ‘round each desiccated bloom

Seeking nectar but finding only crust

For their colony-hive on the cusp of doom

 

Where are the rains of October, then –

And the frosts? Ay, where are they? Where, and when?

We Need to Talk - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

We Need to Talk

 

When a woman says, “we need to talk”

A man’s complexion pales; he begins to sweat

His spine of stern chilled steel becomes chilled mush

As he examines his conscience in anticipation of doom

 

Her talk will not be of puppies or cups of tea

Or how the flowers are bedded in for autumn

Of the curious news from the Bering Strait

Nor yet of ships or sealing wax or kings

 

Oh, no – “we need to talk” means that he will be silent

As she posts to the docket his most recent crimes

 

Line 8 – cf. Lewis, Carroll, “The Walrus and the Carpenter”

How Many Languages of Happiness Do You Speak? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

How Many Languages of Happiness Do You Speak?

 

In how many languages, then, do you

Sing

Sigh

Whisper

 

Breathe

Work

Love

Dream

 

Hope

Laugh

Comfort

And sometimes chide

 

I want to hear all of them from you

(Except maybe the chide)

 

Oop! I Forgot to Attend the Revolution - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Oops - I Forgot to Attend the Revolution

 

From an idea by Scarlet

 

You haven’t yet received your check from George?

I would have thought that his Dark Web of Power

Would have been more efficient than that

But getting good spies is so difficult these days

 

Did I mention that he was by the house on Friday?

We sat on the lawn with drinks and cigars

Counting the autumn fireflies flickering at dusk

I guess his plan for world domination slipped his mind

 

As for me, I simply forgot to attend the Revolution -

I was distracted by the adorable new kittens

Louvre Robbed in Broad Daylight - a question

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

“Louvre Robbed in Broad Daylight”

 

-news item

 

One wonders if there is any narrow daylight.

A Classmate’s Noisy Little Sister - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Classmate’s Noisy Little Sister

 

 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils Himself in many ways…”

 

-Tennyson, Idylls of the King

 

When she was a child

 

An assignment in one of her high school classes

Was to write to one of Our Brave Boys somewhere

Section 8 of Article I was being ignored

And she chose me, which made me feel special

 

Which is irrelevant; her funeral is tomorrow

Her son, a fine young man, cried as he hugged me

A father himself, a citizen of dignity and honor

For the moment a little boy who couldn’t find his mom

 

As her family assembled to pray her farewell

 

She did good

 

And so may you

 

And so may we all

DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF THE TRANSPARENT DESTRUCTION! - poem (of a sort)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF THE TRANSPARENT DESTRUCTION!

 

 

Macbeth to the witches:

 

How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags.

What is't you do?

 

Witches:                        

 

                                     A deed without a name.

 

-Macbeth IV.i.48-50

 

Bricks, freedom, columns, windows that let in light, old trees that shaded the lawns, dignity, decency, mercy, kindness, self-discipline, honor, precedents ancient and modern, protections, chapters and verses, the majesty of the law, literature, music, art, dining with utensils, logic, education, good taste – all must go DO NOT TAKE PICTURES

 

 

 

Wreckers guide steel treads

                                                       DO NOT TAKE PICTURES         Over fragments of Amendment V

Trenchers rip the

                             heart  DO NOT TAKE PICTURES     out of Amendment IV

 

Excavators heave Amendment XXII

                                                DO NOT TAKE PICTURES

                                                                              into garbage skips

 

Cranes stack bits of Amendment VI against a chain link fence

 

DO NOT TAKE PICTURES

 

And at dusk a fire, a big, beautiful fire, chantings and clenched fists while tokens of the freedom to disagree, freedom from a government religion, freedom to choose one’s own books, and freedom from fear rise as flame and fire and smoke, and The People wave their made-in-China gift-shop bibles with the words of Our Leader printed in red and sing along to the musical stylings of Horst Wessel.

 

BUT DO NOT TAKE PICTURES